Leonard Burman, Paul Volcker Chair in Behavioral Economics and senior research associate at the Center of Policy Research within Syracuse University’s Maxwell School for Citizenship and Public, has been appointed by the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis to its Advisory Committee on Data for Evidence Building within the U.S., a newly formed committee promoting expanded access to federal data.

The committee will review, analyze, and make recommendations on how to promote efficient use and sharing of federal data that supports evidence building for policymakers. The committee consists of representatives from federal, state, and local governments, and experts in data policy, privacy, technology, transparency, and evaluation and research methodology. The committee will present recommendations to the director of the Office of Management and Budget and propose pilot projects to improve access and integration of data use across agencies while protecting privacy.

A tax-policy expert, Burman is an Institute Fellow at the Urban Institute. He leads a team of researchers working with the IRS to create public synthetic datasets representing the wealth of data reported on income tax returns and information returns. The team is currently developing a way for researchers to remotely access confidential tax data for statistical analysis while protecting taxpayer privacy. In 2002, he co-founded the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution. He served as the deputy assistant secretary for Tax Analysis at the Treasury Department and was a senior analyst at the Congressional Budget Office for nine years. He is past-president of the National Tax Association (NTA), 2016 recipient of the NTA’s Davie-Davis Award for Public Service, and a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. Burman received a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Minnesota and a B.A. from Wesleyan University.

Also serving on the committee is alumnus Charles Cutshall '07 B.A. (I.R.)/G'09 M.P.A., who has experience leading and transforming privacy programs. Cutshall was previously named the chief privacy officer for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Read more about his appointment here.

Sarah Forland, M.S. Public Relations Candidate | M.A. International Relations Candidate

09/21/20